Sometimes i think my constant obsessing with him...is just a carry over. After so many months of being with him where he was the center of my universe...this is just a habit that carries over...its just what i'm used to doing..even though I know i don't want to be with him.
One important thing for me has been to NOT 'check up' on what he is doing in any way. With the internet and as you said facebook, its so easy to cyberstalk them. I made it a rule for myself: i cannot:
-google his name
-check his dating profile

This way, its impossible for me to know what he is doing. I have a calender and every day that i don't 'check up' onwhat my ex is doing, i mark it off. This has been helpful because I can see the progress I've made in not checking up on him the last few months. And also...not knowing what he is doing has REALLY freed my mind...taking a step away from him...having NO IDEA where he is or hwat he's doing...gives me breathing room to focus on healing myself and focus on how messed up he is...rather than focus on how "great" his 'New life' is without me.
Maybe doing something like this could benefit you as well?

Good luck solo :)

Everytime you have the thought or urge to check on him or think of him, you tell yourself, STOP! What does "insert your name here" want? What do I need? What would I like? And whatever comes up you focus on. Retrain your mind to think about you and your needs. Have the obsession with yourself, you need to make up for lost time!

I managed to think less of him by cutting cords. My friend truetome gave me this advice and it worked all right.

http://healing.about.com/cs/energyhealing/a/cutcords.htm

I also read a book about educating your mind. I'm sorry that I cannot find the information right now.

It takes time. I am still dreaming of him and it is more than one year....give yourself some time. Time is a good healer :)

Solo60
Thank you for sharing your story. I just recently (less then two months ago) got out of my relationship with my ex and have the same issue. Some days Im OK, but there are those days that no matter what i am doing who I am hanging out with I cant get my mind off of him or what he possibly is doing or if he is ok??? I admit I used to ask people what he was doing or where he was at, but quickly realized that it was just a form of gossip, inaccurate and just for others entertainment while i was hurting. After having my last conversation with him, I ended checking any myspace, phone calls and asking others about him. And it does help. I think the fact of uncertainty when people would tell me what they "knew" hurt more because I wasn't sure and there is no way I was going to heal knowing updates on his outings. Now I am trying to move on, I have come to accept the fact that our relationship wasn't meant to be and God has different plans for all of us. They were put in our path so we could learn from it and now we must accept it, no matter how hard it is, take the necessary time to heal and move on. When I find myself thinking about him i turn to think of the prayer of serenity...

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."

...and force my mind to accept that there is nothing I can do while he is not willing to make the changes necessary because a relationship takes two. Not to mention, we are wonderful women and truly deserve the best!! A man who respects us, loves us, cares for us and wants to form a healthy relationship!! Time heals all wounds. Best of luck :)

Your at 3 months solo60 and i at 2 months NC. I just want to tell you that you are not crazy or alone i still wake up everyday and he is in my thoughts and i go to bed everynight with him in my thoughts and anything inbetween. Its like he has taken over my mind but sometimes its getting less intense as i go about my life so im hoping thats a good sign. And lizzy4 unreal like you it is the serenity prayer that i have been praying when i go to bed at night.

I really struggle with this, I have in every relationship I've been in that's held any importance to me. I obsess, check up on him, want to keep constant tabs and if someone I'm dating doesn't call me or text me regularly within a certain amount of time, I allow myself to fly into a panic and my mind spirals out of control at the possibilities...it goes to what i jokingly call 'the dark place'. I have found that I need to find comfort within myself and not solely from people, so when those thoughts come into my mind, the why hasn't he called/text me, I wonder what he's doing....I have learned to tell myself to let it go and I do something to calm myself, to get my mind off of him or at least the negativity.

My big issue is fear of abandonment so my heart thinks I have to keep track of all that's going on, my gut immediately panics if I don't know what he's doing because the core of my fear is that I'm not worthy of love, I'm not good enough and everyone will screw me over and leave, when in fact I'm the one that bails because if I leave first, you can't leave me. I'm not saying this is what your struggle is with, just sharing my own.

Anyway, didn't want to go on and on...too late! I've stopped checking things online and am currently doing th 21 day consciousness cleanse which is helping to clear my mind and help me overcome those negative thoughts and focus on my life and not someone else's life and the impact I allow it to have in my life.

Read, read, read and if you can see a therapist, do it! I find when I read about things I'm struggling with, the knowledge makes me stronger and helps me grow from the struggle.

The main problem women have after leaving pathological men is obtrusive constant thoughts of the relationship and cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously.

The main part of these pathological men is that show up as one thing, but they are something entirely different. This is a disorder of social hiding. This is an individual that is PROFOUNDLY disturbed but looks normal. In a normal relationship you dont have 2 different people to deal with. Here you are breaking up with dark side and the charmer.

It took me ONE YEAR, one year of ZERO CONTACT, books, posting, 12 step meetings and therapy for the instrusive thoughts to stop.

If you have constant instrusive thoughts you can pretty much take it to the bank that you were with a pathological.

Not wanting the thoughts is not going to help. Just acknowledge that it is part of the process.

What helped me the most was NOT to fight it. I first I would practically go mad: WHY DO I KEEP thinking about him? And then I just left it alone: OK thought about it him, oh well there it is.

The acceptance seemed to help me the most.

Part of the intrusive thoughts also have to do with being left with PTSD. These men are so horrible that we are left tramatized.

Re-experiencing the traumatic event
• Intrusive, upsetting memories of the event
• Flashbacks (acting or feeling like the event is happening again)
• Nightmares (either of the event or of other frightening things)
• Feelings of intense distress when reminded of the trauma
• Intense physical reactions to reminders of the event (e.g. pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, muscle tension, sweating)
PTSD symptoms of avoidance and emotional numbing
• Avoiding activities, places, thoughts, or feelings that remind you of the trauma
• Inability to remember important aspects of the trauma
• Loss of interest in activities and life in general
• Feeling detached from others and emotionally numb
• Sense of a limited future (you dont expect to live a normal life span, get married, have a career)
PTSD symptoms of increased arousal
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
• Irritability or outbursts of anger
• Difficulty concentrating
• Hypervigilance (on constant red alert)
• Feeling jumpy and easily startled

I had all of the above and had to have additional EMDR (rapid eye movment therapy) to treat my PTSD that might have helped the intrusive thoughts.

Its been 5 months for me now. I was consumed with the thoughts 24/7. In the last 2 weeks..it has gotten to just a few times a day. My mornings have remained the same I hear my phone alarm..wake up think about him right away..what he's doing..I knew his morning routine so I envision all that..accept I add the new girl and wonder if she is there and if he kisses her goodbye etc..on weekend mornings its different I picture them waking up together and so on..but I think its become habit now for me in the mornings..so I am trying to change my ring tone thinking that will help break the pattern..the morning thoughts last about 20 min. Then through out the day sporadic but I am controlling them more..they are getting choppy and its getting hard to remember some things. It feels like I have accepted them so they are not causing me so much grief..I think them and then say ok got that out of the way now lets carry on with the day. I still hope he will text one day and I delude myself that he will. I also delude myself by thinking he will realize one day what he had and will be sad about his loss. So as you can see I still have illusions. But all of this is ok....because I am aware of it...and I accept the fact that I am doing this because I can only deal with some of the pain a little at a time and the obsessing keeps me from focusing on that pain...the pain I get from the thoughts..is not as nearly painful as facing my true fears which are being alone...which is why I stayed with a narcsisstic anti sociopath....make sense?

My contribution here may come across rather "simple", even naive....I would understand if some of you felt that...but I want to add something that helped me when I was obsessing which may just help someone one step further along the recovery road.
We are talking about a relationship I had years 25 ago...after its end I obsessed over him to the point my health suffered greatly and I could barely function. This was a man I had met when I was 18 and he was 33...he had never married, emotionally unavailable, the works! What a challenge for me the 100% rescuing WWLTM from the dysfunctional family, who was never seen or heard etc etc. We played cat and mouse for 8 years...I even moved to Australia from England to TRY to escape him! And even returned after three GREAT years (careerwise) when he wrote and told me he was a fool to have let me go, etc. We lasted one year, then he bolted.
So how did I get over the obsessing after that man?
First, thank the Lord, in my desperation, I became a believer and started a relationship with the ONLY "man" who met ALL my needs...Jesus.
Second, I went to talk to a pastor at my newly found church. Confessed all and shared with him my obsession..still!!....with this man. He stopped me, asked me two questions:
1) Does x want to get married? I said No
2) Does x want children) I said No

Ok....do YOU, want to be married, and do you want children?, he asked, I said Yes to both.
Well then.....he said....there's the key!

And do you know it WAS!!!! Somehow I managed to flick the switch.....from that day (honest) I never looked back as far as this jerk anyway..

I am well aware that many of the situations here are no way as easy as this one....however, it might just be another method to try?
Think of say 2 or 3 things that YOU want in your life (major things),,,,and things that you know that your ex DID NOT want. And focus on achieving those 2 or 3 things, somehow.
Change focus to what YOU can have - and desire - in your life now that jerk-face has left it......he is no longer part of the equation. Celebrate the loss with what you can gain!!!

Have I ever told all of you how great I think you are? Well, please allow me. This morning, 4am, I woke and reached for my laptop lying on the bed next to me. I found all of the fantastic replies here on our site. A lot of what I read brought tears to my eyes, not because it was hurtful but because I could feel your caring and sharing of yourselves. God bless all of you. I have once again felt the connection we all have, even if the reason which has brought us together was pain. Something else has occurred to me...I'll share it because I believe you will all understand....I never had a sister sibling and for most of my life my best friends were guys. I had girlfriends I'd pal around with but we didn't really get into each other's psyches or share our relationship issues much. My dad was my hero and I guess I thought that ALL guys were like my dad. My mom and I were never close and I don't recall her ever having any real interaction with me. I'm sure that my childhood has definitely set me up for the issues that I have now. I guess there's some solid truth in that old line from a Bob Dylan(?) song..."every generation blames the one before". I guess I'll have a lot to make up for with my own kids then. Anyway, what I really wanted to say was thank you. Thank you all for being who you are, for sharing these ideas which I know will help me and God bless you all. Don't ever let anyone make you believe that it's a fault to be a woman who loves too much....just save it for the ones who return it to you.

Susy, I was not as familiar with cognitive dissonance as I needed to be but, yes, now I can see how that definitely plays into the equation. I have felt that I am a PTSD candidate and I will investigate what therapies I can find around here for that. Thanks again.

P.S. I'm not very good at switching gears. Once I feel convinced about something, I tend to hold onto the conviction. I used to think that was a good thing but maybe I need to find an alternative method this time.

Susy, I had a revelation this morning while I was lying in bed thinking about the knots in my stomach and a churning gut. I didn't have these sickening feelings before N. I KNOW he's effected my health. I angerly yelled it outloud..."HE"S NOT WORTH THIS!" and then it hit me....cognitive resonance....your mind trying to deal with two conflicting beliefs....and I remembered all the times during the first year of our relationship, that, being aware of N's lack of self confidence, self value, his alonesness, his depression, I would often tell him that I cared about him and that he was WORTH caring about. Now here I am trying to unbelieve what I truly believed. I believed it so deeply that it isn't going to get turned around in my brain overnight. My brain is trying to deal with this conflict and I don't think there is any other way eliminate the proces nor can there be. My brain is trying to teach me something. I will heal. I've healed before. I'm going to look into the therapy you mention susy. Thank

Solo,

One really good thing about that therapy is it is NOT like talk therapy at all. You go and of course have to explain why you are there. And I can only talk about my experience but she will ask you a few questions and then she starts with a light bar. That therapy is called rapid eye movement therapy because your eyes follow the bar and you do that for an approximate amount of time. And then she stops the bar and asks what came up, and what came up NEVER had anything to do with xn.

Really random but painful memories that I had not thought of in years. Like for example seeing my beloved dog get run over (in front of my eyes) when I was 8 years old. Something about the eye movement helps you process trauma. EMDR is one of the few therapies found effective for PTSD. Talk therapy actually seem to agitate PTSD.

Also I would recommend the book: Healing Trauma by Peter Levine.

I found my EMDR therapist on this site:

http://www.emdr.com/clinic.htm

I got really lucky and got a great one. I really liked the light bar. I had EMDR previously w/o the light bar, so ask if they have it.